


Marigold Balm

by Tridraconeus



Series: Marigold Balm [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description of Injury, Healing, Injury, Medical Ninja
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22298146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: The facial injury was by far the least severe. He left it.Mutoh had one working lung. That would be enough while Yasu worked.Mutoh only had one heart, and it was failing.
Series: Marigold Balm [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605055
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Marigold Balm

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing my part to populate the Medical Ninja tag

Kazuchika Mutoh was a man with short, well-groomed black hair and strikingly dark eyes, and a goatee trimmed closely to his chin that was thick and smooth. He had olive skin; he had near-mastery over fire- and earth-type chakras. He was a jōnin; he was a jōnin- _sensei_ mentoring his second team, who had just become genin and so were only a little older than Academy children. A glance at his dog tags showed that he was in his thirties.

He was bleeding out. His skin was ashen and pale. His eyes were closed; there was blood in his hair, and all over his face, and his mouth was torn at the side all the way back to the hinge of his jaw. He’d come back from a mission with his genin in tow; pale-faced and shaking, clinging to each other, but dry-eyed and articulate. He’d checked himself into the hospital, and then had collapsed, and then Yasu had been called.

Yasu was fifteen. He was a chūnin; a medical-nin. He’d worked in the hospital for four years, one as an unofficial genin trainee and three as a fully-fledged medical-nin. Kusagakure was a village that did not often find itself in direct conflict, and so had the luxury of allowing only the most promising applicants to become medical-nin. 

Two genin assistants had taken Mutoh to an open operating room. Yasu had been in the recovery ward with a chūnin recovering from summer sickness when he was called, and had set off at a dead sprint to the operating room.

Yasu knew that uncertainty was a killer. If it only killed himself, he could perhaps live with that, and allow himself uncertainty. He could not allow Mutoh to die, not when he could see the three genin huddled to each other in the hallway. He let his mind clear and filled it instead with actions so practiced they could not be struck by uncertainty. Yasu could see three injuries that required swift attention. He had been hit across the face, first, a brutal tearing of skin and muscle to distract and unbalance him. Then, he had been pierced through the ribs, hitting a lung Then, he had been pierced again at a different angle, knocking against his sternum and sliding neatly into the muscle of his heart. He had leapt up and back in response, the downward slice said, shearing off chips of bone with a chakra-infused blade. If he wasn’t a jōnin, he would be dead. 

The facial injury was by far the least severe. He left it. 

Mutoh had one working lung. That would be enough while Yasu worked.

Mutoh only had one heart, and it was failing. The injury was ugly and gaping enough from the strain of returning to Kusagakure that Yasu could see the weak, fluttering pulses of his heart, the ivory expanse of bone. 

“Bandages. Antiseptic.” 

He didn’t look or listen for a genin assistant scrambling to procure either. His hands were already on Mutoh’s chest, palms connecting to tattered skin and the gaping hole there, calling upon the familiar sensation of the Shōsen. He’d practiced it until he fell over from exhaustion. He could use it even _in_ exhaustion, now, after a particularly difficult month of genin being incapable of grasping the concept of _teamwork_. 

He felt the flow of Mutoh’s blood; the pulsing of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest and the burn of air in his one working lung, and a gaping blackness and agony in his useless one. The Shōsen could heal him, of course, Yasu could replace the ruined skin and muscle, but the new tissue would be raw and weak. He guided the growth of new cells. It thrummed through his palm; it felt warm, and cool, and then warm again. His hands were covered in blood, that was the warmth; the chakra was cool. The world narrowed into his hands on Mutoh’s chest and the mental image of Mutoh’s ravaged heart, and the new cells mounding on each other to seal off the hole, and to reconstruct a ventricle; too much could clog, and too little would be pierced open like tissue paper. Too much chakra would do the same thing; would throw his system into disarray. Too little would leave him even weaker than he’d already be. It was walking on a razor with a life in the balance, and Yasu was one of the best Kusa had to offer.

He took a breath before moving on to Mutoh’s lung. It was more complicated because it had more parts, was far more intricately constructed, but also easier because much of the time pressure of him bleeding out was staunched. Yasu started with a chakra plug at the fork of his lungs, leading to the stabbed one, and fed some of his own chakra into the muscles to inflate it. Then he could really get to work with the delicate process of regrowing the tissue there. His head was starting to throb with strain, but only starting. He held his breath for ten seconds, pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, pressed his lower hand against the covering one and the upper one against the lower one, twitching the fingers of the top hand from index to pinkie once, and pushed the strain away. He pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth again. 

He used a chakra scalpel to cut away the more tattered flaps of skin and regrow them entirely. It was chakra-costly, but better than a shoddy job, and he could spare the chakra; not Mutoh’s life. The base of his head, right above his neck, was starting to hurt. He closed his eyes and bit the side of his tongue.

Release. _Breathe._ Press, and pull back. Mutoh was starting to stir. 

He removed the plug and felt Mutoh’s lungs, both of them, fill up with air. He couldn’t rest on it, though, had to move on to his face. 

The genin assistant had put supplies on the cart next to him. He picked up a clean towel and sponged up the blood covering Mutoh’s face, wiped his own hands off, and set it back down; allowing the lulled Shōsen to return to full, blooming strength. This was simple.

Mutoh’s breath caught, then he must have recognized the numb buzz of medical ninjutsu. He quieted. He breathed out slowly. Yasu was glad that he hadn’t immediately attacked. That would be a complication and, because Mutoh was a jōnin, likely a deadly one, and he was glad to keep his hands and life. 

“Someone from the Intelligence Division will be arriving to debrief you tomorrow,” he told Mutoh’s motionless body. “You are still injured. You’ll be bedbound for a week and an outpatient for a month, and likely in physical therapy for a month after that. You _will_ coordinate with the Jōnin Commander to find a suitable substitute for your team until you are fit to train them again.” 

Much better to say it now when Mutoh couldn’t argue with him. Yasu finished knitting together the tissue of his cheek and turned to the cart once more, opening a small, cylindrical container of salve and smearing it on the tender skin. Mutoh grunted at him.

“Rest here. Someone will help you to the recovery ward.”

“Got it, medic-san.” His voice was faint and gravelly, but Yasu was surprised that he was able to speak at all. Yasu washed his hands, wiped them off, and nodded to the genin assistants; one of them smiled at him, and he unthinkingly smiled back. They didn’t have to speak to understand. Silent support was all Yasu needed; all the assistant could give. 

As he opened the door he came face-to-face with the Jōnin Commander. 

“Mutoh-san isn’t well enough for visitors right now,” he said. The Jōnin Commander looked at him. Logically, Yasu knew that the man had to obey him. In the hospital, the medical-nin’s word was law. Yasu could see Mutoh’s genin team still at the end of the hall. Their eyes were wide. “I’m sorry, Commander-san. He will be permitted to have visitors tomorrow, when he is in the recovery ward.”

He kept his tone polite but firm. His head hurt from fixing Mutoh’s heart-- he wanted to lay down. He couldn’t, though. He had to fill out a report. He had to return to the recovery ward and remain on call. He could rest later.

“...alright. May I leave a message with one of the assistants?”

He’d expected more of a struggle. He did not sag in relief; he was better-trained than that. “You may. Thank you.”

He smiled, again. The Jōnin Commander did not smile back. The door to the operating room cracked open and the Jōnin Commander began to speak quietly to one of the genin assistants cleaning the room and checking in with Mutoh. Yasu ignored it and set off down the hall, where the three genin crowded around him and immediately bombarded him with questions. 

_\--is he okay?_

_\--did you heal him?_

_\--what did you do?_

_\--his chest, it was bleeding._

_\--his teeth, they were showing, his cheek was like a sail._

_\--his breath, it was labored_.

“He’s been stabilized,” was what he managed. A genin tugged at his sleeve, speckled with blood. He didn’t stop but he looked down.

“Can we see him?”

They’d heard him talking with the Jōnin Commander, but likely thought that they could sway him. He was nearly twice their age. It wasn’t going to work, but they were shaken and afraid. His heart ached for them. His jōnin-sensei only rarely got hurt, and never badly; he’d always been the one to bear scrapes and bruises. He wondered what the mission was that had led to Mutoh being so severely injured. He’d talk with one of the genin assistants-- they’d tell him, or else someone else, and it would be all over the break room by the time Yasu’s shift was over.

“Your sensei is very hurt. He needs to rest.”

Yasu wished he could see himself the way the three genin saw him; worldly, and wise, and surely capable enough to have their sensei healed if he simply snapped his fingers and willed it. He felt very small and helpless now that he’d done all that he _could_ do-- somewhat like he’d failed the young shinobi following after him like ducklings. 

“How would you like to come with me while I file his report? I can explain what I did, and it will help you feel calm.”

Scared or not, they perked up. He smiled; he didn’t miss being a genin. Some people did. 

“And then I can tell you some things to do to help him heal. Wouldn’t you like to boss your jōnin-sensei around for a change?” Again, more, the tension drained away from the genin. 

“Yeah!” 

“Well, come on,” he urged them, allowing himself to sound conspiratorial and sly; the genin’s raised spirits made him feel a little less strained, and his head ached in a lower register than before. “And if he complains, you can say I told you that you could.” 

The genin cheered. In that moment, Yasu knew he had made an enemy of Kazuchika Mutoh, and he could not bring himself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed this! I love when people tell me what they think of my writing; it motivates me to write more and I come back and read comments I've gotten when I'm feeling down!


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